I would love to tell Puel that, but I think I'd be far too dazzled by his enormous personality to get a word in edgeways.
Long has shown that he can cause defences problems, but he has only hit double figures once in his time in the PL. Rodriguez was coming back from a serious injury, so a complete gamble whether or not he would reach his old heights, and it would definitely take time anyway. Austin I will give you, but he has had fitness issues and with the amount of games we were facing at the start of the year having just him was not enough Boufal was coming off a massive injury aswell, has only been able to play regularly in the last month or so, I assume we wouldve known this so again he would miss the EL group stages. Plus he is coming into a new league so very unlikely to hit the ground running. Redmond was their number one target so they probably have been conned by watching a youtube video of Messi then as the camera zooms in after the goal someone has cleverly edited it to Redmond celebrating. Again he has been very hit and miss his entire time in the PL. Tadic again I will give you, but he is not a massive goal threat. I really fail to see how anyone could've looked at that and really thought we had say 65-70 goals in there (over all competitions)
Well until or unless we bring a decent striker in, that simply isn't something which any of us know the answer to for certain. So there's little point speculating, and certainly unfair on Puel to assume that the style would be no better. We can only hope that a decent striker does come in in January (and surely for Puel's on sake, he'll be asking the same of the board. He can't be an idiot. He must know that the first person to get the chop when things are going wrong is the manager). And yes, despite some of the above comments, most of us did know on 1 September that we were painfully short in attack!! Only Long has performed below expectations.
2016 started badly, and has finished on a bum note. However, somehow the 2015/16 football season ended on a high. Then this autumn, I got to go to Milan. Where we didn't score a goal, but still; the San Siro, in Milan. For a crap year, it wasn't all bad. Although there was Brexit. And Trump. And David Bowie died. So yeah, 2016 can do one now, ta. 2017 will probably be a bit rubbish too, but it will have it's highs. Perhaps we'll get to Wembley, and win something. Stranger things have happened. Happy new year everybody.
We need to be a little careful with the criticism of rotation. It has helped us manage injuries and fitness, certainly while we played the euro group stage. And it also enabled us to blood some promising youngsters. I do think he has over done it though, when we get a decent break we don't need six changes. Biggest fear for me this season (coming from someone who thought we'd finish mid table) is, not keeping Virgil happy. If we limp on, why should he bother doing another year? And if he's unhappy, the fee will drop. Lose lose.
It's also not about strikers ... EVERYONE needs to contribute. We're going to be no better signing a new ST if there's nothing coming from the midfield. My final view on the matter is I feel that some fans just don't understand modern football and how it works, the game has changed since god knows when, just embrace and understand it!!!!! Signing out now, happy new year to you all
Puel is facing the consequence of a Koeman side that lived off league results attained by a couple of players. I am not overly sure Puel is the right man at all but it certainly is not helped by our over achievement of that past couple of years raising expectations and even making many on this thread proclaim that Puel has turned us from a season(s) of beautiful football. Did everyone else just watch the goals for the past 2 seasons or actually see the crap we were subjected to inbetween the goals from players that helped those seasons along? And yes I have had a few drinks. Xmas brought me a nice bottle of Vintage Fonseca and Waitrose has Moscatel on reduced. Getting them in early because the kids are adamant they want to be at Sincil Bank tomorrow to watch a team of poor lower league players that actually attack instead of playing hot potato. And they also want to be part of yet another 5k crowd watching "crap" non league football.
I'm not far from your opinion either. It is more the supply that is the problem either wingers? AMs? etc. Jay gets in really good positions even today but the ball never comes.
Because some of us thought we needed another attacking player we don't understand football? I think you are the one slightly confused here
"Some people don't understand modern football but instead of explaining why I think this I will log off so I don't have to. Have that ****ers!"
I don't really understand how he can say people don't understand football when we have been proven right in our opinion
No, because some people think there's no need for squad rotation, aimed at fans in general, not just this forum. I'm all for differing opinions on attacking players and I agree it's not working right now. I understand the point, but I just don't think we needed an attacker in the summer. Clear enough?
Indeed. This is the one thing which happy-clappers (or whatever you want to come them) cannot throw at the rest of us. We are not saying this in highsight! Mane wasn't replaced. Pelle wasn't replaced. And even before we sold Pelle, we needed to upgrade him in my view (albeit ideally keeping Pelle as a squad option). People can try and bang out that old line about Austin and Redmond being those replacements (and hey, maybe the board honestly did feel like that), but it's a load of rubbish. Most people could tell you that we'd be much, much worse off with just those players coming in. And that's before even mentioning the chronic need we have had for some time now for a goalscoring CM. As I said, in my view only Long has under performed this season. The rest have pretty much done as expected. So they can't be blamed. They are what they are.
Enjoy mate, have a good'un Bar the squad/striker thing I think we may actually agree on the other points tbh...
Oh that's fair enough, and I agree with you. It's more the mental side that is knackering rather than the physical.
